


In Loving Memory [Hiatus til May 2021]

by Dressiestsphinx



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Exploring the Apothicons as a whole, Exploring the Dark Aether, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Many more characters to be added as story progresses, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Presumed Dead, References to Canon, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Victis deserved better, backstory on characters to be expanded on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dressiestsphinx/pseuds/Dressiestsphinx
Summary: --Post Tag Der Toten--Abandoned within a new plane of existence and no longer assisted by Richtofen, the Victis crew must survive in a new realm ruled by the ancient order of the Apothicons.
Relationships: Abigail "Misty" Briarton/Marlton Johnson, more relationships to be added - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 3





	1. Woe to the Conquered

**Author's Note:**

> Just a story I've had since the Aether ending that I want to actually write out as we wait for news of the next zombies experience. Also Victis deserved a better end, but at the moment, their suffering will most likely continue before things even get better.
> 
> The lyrics throughout come from the song 'The Divider' by Benn Down and could perhaps be the story's main song title to describe Victis' banishment to the Dark Aether.
> 
> “I’ve been a witness to many miracles and catastrophes, I’ve saddled giants, conquered shadows,...walked a path no other could take--” comes from the Blood of the Dead's alternate dialogue during Richtofen's death in the Russian version of the game. Decided to at least have that tie into the story since I found the dialogue even more heartbreaking.
> 
> While I do want Marlton and Misty to eventually get together sometime within the story, I want them to at least have their relationship develop more. So they will become endgame eventually, but at the moment, they're at least caring to one another.
> 
> Originally the beginning would have been longer, but I decided to shorten it due to so much happening. The next chapter will have Victis at last within the Dark Aether. And many familiar and new faces will appear.
> 
> Though the story is surrounding Victis, there will be other plot points where they're not in them just to flesh out characters and give them their own spotlights. At the moment, I have no intention to bring Ultimis and/or Primis in this story because I don't really have anywhere in the story for them to fully shine. Also, I just want to explore Victis as a whole that focuses solely on them.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t think saying good-bye would be so hard. And with everything that’s to come—We’ll face it together. To whatever end.” ―Sarah J. Maas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone who had mixed feelings at the ending of Tag Der Toten and when it came to the fates of Victis, I decided to change that. Instead of writing a one-shot though, I decided to give Victis a chance in terms of story-telling.

* * *

_I can see the light of day again._

_(No I am not the one)_

_And now I know that I must start again._

_(No I am not the one)_

_No I am not the best of faithful men._

_(No I am not the one)_

_And I will take it till the very end._

* * *

_“He wants_ **_us_ ** _to help save it! The universe!”_

Stuhlinger’s words made her tense up and she does not like the idea of panicking when their mission hasn’t begun at the moment. Misty would be lying to her teammates, would be ultimately lying to herself if she said she wasn’t afraid of what laid ahead. By no means was she fully onboard with Richtofen’s plan at all and by Stuhlinger’s eagerness to follow the man’s every word within his head, she believed she had every right to refuse to follow the orders of individuals she didn’t fully trust. It was far too much to comprehend in a short period of time, especially when the lives of every one of them had all come far too close to death. She still remembers the consequences of following a voice that they followed at first so blindly in the beginning. The voice led them with no intention of restoring her world, he had gone back on his word. That same voice told them that they would soon perish alongside the shell of a planet that was once her home. She remembers the close calls during their journey to find Richtofen’s precious book, both by new enemies and by the hands of her teammates. There have been far too many close calls in a time span that she can’t consider as a week; she has to wonder if her dad’s actually looking out for her from the other side.

She still believes that she has every right to not follow their orders, the orders of men that are clearly delusional and dangerous at best, but she’s not so sure if she has a choice in the matter anymore. Especially when a familiar portal opened in front of them and the sound of a steel bar hitting the floor had snuffed out the early flames of rebellion within her all together. Stuhlinger had given the order and despite herself, she was the first to dash through the portal; the screams of the undead rampaging down the stairs was all she needed to remember that there was always the other option if she refused to follow. She was not going to entertain the other option and she turned halfway to see the others were right behind her on that.

She hates the idea that she’s following blindly within the dark of a world that she clearly did not belong in; a plan within this world dictated by Richtofen through Stuhlinger that she wanted nothing to do with. It’s all crazy; far too crazy of how optimistic it all sounds to save multiple universes, her universe included, but it all goes against the pessimistic voices that kept her company in the later years of the apocalypse. It all clashes against one another just like her conversation with Stuhlinger about Richtofen’s true intentions and it ends like she had expected: in a stalemate she’s tired of getting.

As the journey in Siberia progresses, Stuhlinger's words play in a repeat that haunts her. The more she reflects on them, the more her nerves run wild; it's the 'us' part that truly gets to her. Before her own universe was to her knowledge destroyed completely, she still woke up each day and laid down each night with the hope that there were more survivors left. She had some hope that there was a remnant of a society left that she could take refuge in and finally settle down. Even when she was younger and on her own after her dad's death, she had hoped that a cure was at least being worked on. When she had met the others along that search, it began to hit her at last. Those days, those months that eventually transpired to a whole decade grew alongside her. She notices first with her own voice, those years of screaming profanities at the dead and her teammates alike in the heat of battle have taken a toll on her. There are other differences she takes notice, both physically and emotionally, and she has no doubt in her mind that her dad would’ve been proud to know she got her act straight at last. 

Her teammates have grown, both physically and mentally, and she's not entirely dense to know their progression was only possible because of their need to survive. Just like her. They’ve done it since the beginning up until today. They're a team and whether she or any of them liked it or not, they had to stick together. She made it known to all of them that there was always the other possibility, whether the dead or one of them would be the end of them. They made it this far together and from Stuhlinger's wording and Richtofen's constant need for their compliance, she has a feeling they're the only ones left at this point. She’s done the math in her head when her mind is no longer preoccupied with counting headshots and if memory serves her right, she would now be at least twenty-nine. Younger than those who didn’t make it far within the decade and older than those who had no chance. 

Stuhlinger’s words come to her mind once more after she speaks to Russman. She had questions about Broken Arrow and during the first few minutes of that conversation she realized how pointless it was to get anything useful from the oldest member of her team. All she can get out from him is the memory of children with beaming smiles and never-ending laughter. She’s not sure if he’s referring to his own children or possibly his own grandchildren when out of nowhere the old man asks who she had lost. _What was her life like before it was overtaken by death?_

She felt herself tense up at Russman’s question. Out of all of them, she could see why she stood out from them particularly, why Stuhlinger had been suspicious of her from the beginning as well. She never spoke about herself other than her preferred nickname and the occasional mention of her dad. Russman’s not the first to question her backstory; Marlton had done the same thing to her earlier. Though she travelled with him longer before meeting Russman and Stuhlinger, even going as far as to develop a care for the timid engineer, she told him nothing. She wished she could take back the defensive, almost hostile tone, she gave him earlier. He was scared. Not of her by any means she hoped, but the man was very much scared about the outcome of their journey. From the looks of it, the man was most likely about to have an overload on that fear before she took his hands into hers. She very much knew his disgust of touching but from her perspective, he probably allowed it given the fact he wasn’t in the mindset to care for it. Even though it was her that was holding his trembling hands in hers. They were close but not as close as Stuhlinger and Russman would think, perhaps not as close as Misty would ever consider, but she took solace in knowing someone would look out for her. That’s what she told him to calm his trembling, added in softly that he could trust her to stop it completely. Behind those glasses, she could see that he wanted nothing more than to trust her but he looked ever so conflicted. She had told him her dad was a marine and a simple fact like that seemed to give Marlton the indication that that was all he was going to get from her.

But this was Russman and last time she checked, Russman’s ability to remember anything, including what they had to do here in Siberia, was still getting worse with each passing day. She had no doubt that the older man would forget her words just as fast than she could utter them. She supposed it wouldn’t be a pointless thing to do; at least let one of them know a bit of her before they were to complete their final mission. Even though Russman would forget the fact that she had folks that she loved and that she did her best not to think of them because they were gone forever, she at least could live with the fact that she said something about herself. She at least didn’t have to worry about Russman pitying her afterwards like Marlton would’ve done. When Russman asks what they were talking about, she takes the time to excuse herself, thanking her stars that she held out long enough for the tears to finally slip from her eyes.

That's why the 'us' part of Stuhlinger's words gets to her. She found herself resting on the steps right below the hermit’s hideout. She knew beforehand that the man above her was not the talkative type, but she was thankful for his silence as he busied himself on repairing the broken zipline she brought him. It gave her the time and space to collect herself; the others weren’t too keen on approaching the loon in the lighthouse unless it was necessary. It gives her the time and space to realize there was no one else that could do this mission. She was foolish to think there was someone out there to carry the burden of saving an entire multiverse so that she could finally rest. 

But she knows deep down she doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want to look back when they’ve come so far. For the first time in nearly a decade, she admits that she doesn’t want to give up yet and she thinks it’s a bit sadistic of her to ever consider someone else to do this instead of her. She is kind of scared to think of the other option because she has a feeling it would be by her own hands. Even if someone else was willing to lift the burden off her shoulders, what would happen then? Does she pay for her incompetence by the hands of the dead or by the self-inflicted gunshot to her head? Without this mission, what would be the point of continuing when there wasn’t much left to fight for? Now in another plane of existence, a universe where even the dead have taken over, she has to wonder if this was bound to happen until they finally got Richtofen and Nikolai’s Agarthan Device sent to them. If that was the case, it shouldn’t concern her. She said it to Russman already: her loved ones were gone forever. 

But she has to wonder if it was possible that at least one or a small number of universes still existed out there where they hadn’t faced a fate like hers. Fates that so many of her loved ones couldn’t avoid except for her. She thinks she might actually be sadistic enough to let those who hadn’t been through the apocalypse suffer because she’s very conflicted on the second thoughts on following Richtofen’s orders and the feelings that she must do the right thing. She wishes her dad was still alive; he would’ve done the same thing with the war face to prove he wasn’t afraid. He would’ve done the right thing. He had a country to fight for, brothers in arms to fight those battles together. Misty knew from a young age that protecting the family came first. And he was a natural marine; it was exactly what he did for her till his last breath when _they_ came for him. 

Suddenly, all those feelings and thoughts rampaging within her stilled. Even the lingering ones that tried to creep within her mind found their place amongst the memories buried deep down inside. Though she could never come close to her own dad’s reputation of loyalty and servitude, she was his daughter. His only child. The lone survivor of the Briarton family with only their memories of the strongest men and women that Misty admired since the beginning. It was a shame that it came to her far too late to showcase how proud she was to be a part of that. But the moment she hears gunshots fire, there’s still a chance to prove that worth of hers. Despite what the others would say about her ability to bring them all together, she wasn’t any better than them. Marlton’s intelligence surpassed hers outside the field of combat, Stuhlinger had a mental link to the person making sure they made it out alive long enough for the next mission, and Russman still continued despite his old age. By no means were they close to the image of an ideal team and the close call of Marlton, Stuhlinger, and Russman holding each other at gunpoint was clear their alliance was shaky at best, but Misty did her best for them. 

They were all she had left at this point. Despite her mistrust of Stuhlinger and Russman and Marlton’s evergrowing dependence on her, she’d rather have them by her side at this moment than think back on a past where she was utterly alone. Her dad, a marine at first above everything else, would’ve given her the marine motto: _Semper Fidelis_.

_Always faithful_.

She had to do this, they all had to do this for the greater good. There’s no one left to do it but them. Everyone had to put in everything they got and much more if they were going to pull off a mission that the universe was depending on. And as crazy as it all was, even if she had any doubts about it all, she had to rally them all together.

She had given them all, including herself, the ultimatum, her own motto that struck the necessary cord within all of them.

_Live together or die alone._

She hears the hermit lower down the wooden lift and she turns her head up fast enough to catch his shadow retreating away from the edge of his hideout. She gets up at last, stretching her aching joints until she hears those bones of hers pop before she heads over to the wooden lift. She takes the zipline within her hands and inspects it carefully; she’s very much impressed. She may not know the stranger’s name, but he at least makes up the mystery revolving around him by presenting a fine quality of fixing the things they needed. With the zipline now in hand, she grabs her weapon leaning against the rails of the stairwell and makes her way out into the cold.

Determination courses through her veins and by the looks that the others give her when they regroup once more, she can only imagine that they must think she’s far too calm for a situation like this. She’s far from it but it’s a good thing that the others don’t know of it; it makes her voice steady and giving them words of encouragement gets them to follow her. And right now, that’s all she needs from them. From the lips of Stuhlinger, Richtofen has ensured they would be safe after all was said and done. He just needed them for one last battle.

  
  


“We did everything you asked!”, Stuhlinger cried out amongst the gunfire and the cries of the dead. It was a miracle that no zombie had lunged for him as an easy target, an opportunity to feast on someone too distracted about a universal problem than the problem coming in numbers at his teammates. It was either the zombies in this universe were too dense to see this show of weakness or perhaps it was Stuhlinger’s state at the moment: face now drained of blood and far paler than usual, the lack of movement in the state of fear he was currently in, and his cries that could ward off even the most dangerous of survivors had mistaken him as someone beginning the process of turning. 

* * *

**_“You haven’t forgotten about us, have you?!”_ **

With every shot firing from her weapon, her aim grew uncoordinated at the undead coming at them in drastic numbers and the startling amount of rounds left from her weapon were finally realized, Misty shouted in frustration above the gunfire.

“Forget it Stu! He ain’t comin’ for us now!” Just then, a zombie had leaped from the horde, hands high above its head, its jaw gnashing up and down, and a blood-curdling scream alerted Misty just in time. A childhood memory of herself, a little girl who begged to try out for the local Little League so much that she finally had the chance to showcase what she got, combined with the need to conserve ammo gave Misty the idea to use her gun as a baseball bat. At the right moment, she applied as much force as her anger could channel into the side of the zombie’s head. An audible crack came and she watched it slump down before her feet with the red glow within its eyes shutting off, a blood-oozing dent visible on its side. As much as she wanted to stand back and admire her work, perhaps even picture Stuhlinger once this was all sorted out, she knew it was not the time. In fact, more zombies were coming up the stairs.

“What’s our next course of action!?”, Marlton shouted behind him as he continued to fire his dual-wielded pistols simultaneously into the horde coming up. “We can no longer stay in our current location or we risk the chance of getting over--”

“We get it, Marlton!”, Misty snapped as she frantically assessed the situation growing grim with every passing second. She knew they were capable of handling hordes; they’ve done it plenty of times before, but they were never at this alarming amount and they had better guns than the ones they have now. Their chances of holding their ground here with only a limited amount of room to work with was far too small for her liking. Obviously getting off the ship in the same way they entered was getting packed with the undead at the moment and it would only be a matter of time before the undead figured out a way to flank them from behind. Not to mention the lack of a _Max Ammo_ from Richtofen or whoever was making the effort of keeping them alive hasn’t gone unnoticed from her. 

_They will get overrun, no doubt about that. Misty needed to move them immediately._

Their best and dare she say, their only course of action they could do for the moment, is to move further onto the ship and stand their ground there until they could figure out their next move. 

“Boys, let’s group up and follow me!” Misty fired and landed a successful headshot into a zombie that nearly swung for Marlton, the blood splatter landing on Marlton’s back that made the man tense up as he turned around to see the zombie slump forward. The man nodded his thanks in her direction and he frantically made his way up to her. Not too far behind was Russman, who pushed a dispirited Stuhlinger up before continuing to fire as he made his way up with his back turned. Once everyone had regrouped with her, she started her run across the ship, her other teammates’ footsteps following closely behind.

“What is your plan exactly, Misty?!”, Marlton asked as he did his best to follow Misty. His usually neutral voice was now laced with fear and it was clear to all of them that even Marlton was panicking more than normal. Seeing Marlton reload behind them, Russman slowed his pace just enough to provide the younger man cover at any zombies closing in. Against his morals and despite his hatred for the man, it clicked into Russman’s head that they could not afford any casualties. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve left him to deal with it and Marlton would have made sure Russman didn’t hear the end of his changing feelings for him, but Marlton gave Russman a reluctant nod before joining in on shooting down as many of the zombies as he could. Despite their efforts, it became obvious that no matter how many they could put down, there were many more just behind to replace their fallen brethren. Both men abandoned their duty and kept running.

“Whatever her plan is, Brain Box, it better be good enough to get off this damn boat,”, Russman barked. He yelled even louder so everyone could hear. “What Russman wanna know is whatever happened to the German’s end of the bargain, _Stu_!”. Marlton and Russman glared at the back of Stuhlinger’s head and by Stuhlinger’s expression he clearly was distraught. The man remained, an audible whimper was all he could give as they continued their run.

Misty shook her head, her eyes far too focused on the zombies jumping out in front this entire time. She did her best on landing headshots, cursing whenever her shots were mere inches away from their heads. This resulted in having to use more bullets to put them down and mentally keeping track of how many that remained. 

_30 bullets. 30 bullets left and they’ll talk about this at a better time._

“Doesn’t matter right now on who screwed up worse,”, Misty shouted aloud, firing and missing the headshot she was hoping for again. She ended up having to fire three bullets and then swinging her gun as hard as she could mid-run, knocking the zombie overboard. “Let’s just hope there’s a sturdy life boat in the front! If not, least we’ll get plenty of room to run around at!” 

With no objections to a plan that even Misty knew was a bit of stretch and one crafted out of desperation, they continued on. The group made their way across the ship’s cargo hold area with Misty firing consistent headshots at any lone zombies that popped behind the many crates littered across the deck. 

_16 bullets. 16 bullets and Misty will do her damndest to continue her streak._

At that moment, Marlton announced he was out of ammunition just as a zombie from the side of the ship jumped on board, nearly landing on him. 

“Damn, damn, damn!”, Marlton yelled when he felt the zombie’s grip on his ankle. He managed to keep a hold of his balance but he struggled to clip new mags into his pistols with the fear of getting bit coursing through his mind. Just as he looked down in horror to see the zombie’s teeth about to clamp down on him, a bullet struck it between the eyes and he felt its grip slacken around his ankle. Marlton took the opportunity to kick it away in disgust before catching up with the rest of his teammates where Russman scolded him that the next time he might not be as lucky.

Stuhlinger, throughout the entire struggle of everyone else involved, merely ran beside Misty with a perfectly functioning pistol in hand as the group finally made it to the sun deck. As Russman and Marlton worked together to bring down a shelf of boxes and crates to act as a crude barrier for the zombies to climb over, Misty quickly scanned the area to prove her consciousness wrong. She was so sure that a life boat could be located, that they could all work together to bring it down onto the water, and they could get Stuhlinger to paddle them away from this place. In dismay, she felt her optimism plummet at the bare sight. Not a single, functioning lifeboat was in sight and the inevitable was beginning to show its ugly face. 

They will certainly perish here unless they could think of a spur of the moment plan. Her mind ran wild with ideas, each growing more ridiculous and desperate than the last, fueled solely by the fact that this couldn't be the end. After all they’ve been through, after all they’ve done, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. Perhaps they could overthrow the crates and everyone could float away safely from here, perhaps there’s weapons lying around to solve the low ammo situation (Russman announced just now he’s almost completely out), perhaps Marlton could think of something to get them out of this, perhaps they could wait for a portal to open up at the last second like all the other times before, perhaps Richtofen will save th--

Misty cleared her head at how ridiculous she was sounding, almost like Stuhlinger throughout this whole journey and it made her feel like she was reaching her breaking point. She looked to her teammates. 

Russman had just climbed over a high crate for a vantage point and for his own safety now that his ammo was nearly gone. Even from where she stood, she knew the old man was ready for a fight. Aging eyes trained down on the scope, eyes that she could only imagine burned with hatred and the need to see the lights leave the undead’s eyes. Arthritis-stricken hands remaining steady as best as Russman could, his fingers itching to pull the trigger. She has to wonder if this was years of the apocalypse building him as a capable survivor or if the time at Broken Arrow had crafted him long before this. Either way, she knew Russman was still capable enough to fight and she had to give him credit that he was still kicking.

Stuhlinger stood there in the middle of everything, almost ready to break down at any moment, but it was obvious Russman was certainly not going to hold his hand this time. Misty merely hoped he wasn’t planning on doing or saying anything stupid for the time being. As long as he wasn’t in her way when she starts firing at any freak bags that’ll make their way over the barrier, they’ll get answers from him later.

Marlton ran past the still broken Stuhlinger and stopped by Misty’s side. She acknowledged his presence and she wished the man, who always had plans and ideas on dealing with hordes, had one ready in that mind and he came over to share it with her. She met his eyes and those eyes brought her no comfort and the small bit of hope hanging by a thread within her had faded.

“Now what, Misty?”, he asked and his voice gripped her heart in the same manner when he told her he was scared in that same tone earlier. Always the man with questions about everything pertaining to her, but at the moment, she doesn’t know how to answer him with that look in his eyes and the voice that grips her heart terribly. He looks torn apart, in that same manner earlier when he questioned if they were going to be okay. She knows she can’t say the same thing to him, that everything was going to be okay, she knows Marlton is too smart to realize the situation they’re in right now will not end well for them. And it actually hurts her. It hurts her to see him like this. It hurts her to know that she can’t look out for him like she told him she would do. Marlton still looks at her for an answer, but she merely turns her sight back just in time to see the first zombies peeking out from their barrier.

The first zombies had begun to drop down and Russman shouts for Marlton to grow his balls, quit pestering Misty since she’s trying to think of something, and to help him make sure no zombie gets the chance to run at them. Marlton’s eyes lingered on her sunken face a bit longer before he left her side, assisting Russman as best as he could now that he was firing his final clip. Misty knows Russman could easily handle them on his own, but she can’t help to think the older man telepathically knew her growing distraught and Marlton was not making things better. Despite him now away and busy at the moment, Marlton’s words continued to ring in her ears amongst the gunfire and screams coming from the undead getting shot down.

**_“Now what Misty?”_ **

Where had her sense of determination and confidence from earlier gone off too? Moments ago when the dead had appeared after they had sent the Agarthan Device to the ‘Nikolai’ man, she had been angry. At first, her anger was directed at Stuhlinger, who had been so sure that the likes of Richtofen and Nikolai were going to not only save them but also the entire universe. The moment she knew that salvation was nothing but a bait for them to take and Stuhlinger had led them blindly to their inevitable demise, she very much wanted to shoot him out of frustration. Had that lightning not have struck when her weapon was raised at the back of Stuhlinger’s head, she would’ve shot down a delusioned man so desperate to live like her. Her dad would certainly berate her for her mutiny, would never forgive her for it. She couldn’t fault Stuhlinger for his actions to follow beings promising an end to this nightmare, not entirely. After all, she followed a voice that promised them an end long ago, only for that being to announce that they would die after it no longer needed their help. She could direct her anger to Richtofen and Nikolai and it would make sense to blame them for their demise. The fact Stuhlinger didn’t answer her questions regarding them could only mean that even he didn’t know them any better and it was clear by Stuhlinger’s state at the moment that he was just as clueless. He clearly wasn’t expecting this.

However, her anger could only do so much and at the end, what more could it possibly do? She can point fingers, she can label who was at fault, she can paint anyone as the villian of their story, but what exactly would that accomplish? That she was right on her suspicion about Richtofen? It was far too late to rub it in Stuhlinger’s face. That feeling within her that had remained dormant for the past decade begins to emerge and she wished she could handle herself better, especially at a time like this, but the feeling creeps up. It makes the blood within her veins grow cold, it makes her hands clammy within her gloves, and it makes her senses sharper, everything around her more clear as day.

She should’ve known it at the time, long before her plan to find a lifeboat and long before she told everyone to regroup. She denied it all until this very moment when she watched an alarming amount of zombies piling on top of one another as they made their way up the barrier, making Marlton fire frantically. He announced, fear clear in his voice, that he was out of bullets. The feeling grasps her heart.

**_There was no future for her._ **

Not for her, not for Marlton who dreamed of returning to a society, not for the likes of Russman and the memories of his children he has just remembered existed, or Stuhlinger and whatever he lost when they came.

**_This was it; no way out for them, not this time._ **

Any hopes of a portal appearing anytime now have long died out and they wouldn’t last long if they jumped overboard and entered the freezing waters as a last ditch effort. Russman, no matter what he said about stamina, wouldn’t make it for sure. Stuhlinger would be the next to succumb to the swim before the cold got to him; the amount of huffing he made each time they had to swim earlier only made her certain of the observation. Despite the years of growing up swimming in the lakes of her rural home, she certainly knew that the south’s colder waters in the winter didn’t prepare her for Siberia’s water. She’s not sure her body could handle another swim in the water before it would start to shut down; Marlton would certainly give up at the site of her going under.

**_It didn’t matter._ **

She knew today, at this very moment, as she stared at death coming in numbers and knowing of the pain that the freak bags knew not to spare, it was finally her time. She is surprised that despite the effects, despite what is sure to come, she’s not really afraid. 

A dormant memory of her father in his last few moments of life fills her mind in an effort to think of the positives of her death. She’ll get to see him again; she won’t have to struggle remembering the faces of him and of a family she had once cherished and protected. A family she had also neglected at the same time, but she knows that will no longer be the case when she sees them again, wherever that might be. She no longer has to struggle in this life, no longer has to wake up each day with a reminder that it could be her last. She could be free from this game of the hunters and the hunted, this dangerous game of hide and seek, this supposed final battle of good and evil. A game where she thought she knew the rules only to realize it was never one to be won by the likes of her and the others. 

She realizes the positives of death she could come up with would not be enough to make her look forward to dying. She can’t convince herself when deep down inside she doesn’t want to die now. But this journey, this fate, the final moments before her demise, it was always far beyond her comprehension and none of it was hers to decide. 

She tried not to be upset about it all as she merely raised her weapon at last, firing into the crowd with Marlton and Russman. If she is to die, she will die fighting. She was a farmer’s daughter but she was first and foremost a daughter of a marine. Her father died fighting to keep her safe and she will certainly fight for as long as she could like he did for her. She counts her every shot; it doesn’t matter as there are more of them than her bullets, but she does it out of habit.

**15**

**14**

**13, 12, 11**

**10**

Even if there was a chance to see tomorrow, even if by some unknown miracle that they could somehow escape this with their lives, where would they go exactly? Richtofen had made it clear that he had gone back on his word about saving the universe, meaning that if they got out of this alive, they would have to still deal with the dead in a new area. As much as she hated to admit it and she can’t believe she’s admitting it, but without the aid of the German they wouldn’t have made it this far. She knew without a doubt that they wouldn’t last long without him if they escaped and with Stuhlinger still so quiet and distraught, she can only assume that he had long abandoned them after the Agarthan Device was sent. As much as he was a manipulator and clearly out of his mind when she first saw him, he at least knew what he was doing. That’s more than she could say for herself and the rest of her team.

**9**

**8, 7, 6, 5**

**4**

He had backup plans and they clearly didn’t. This was their future, the ending that was inevitable from the beginning but she refused to see it then. She didn’t want to believe it.

They were **_Victis_ **.

‘ _Woe to the conquered_ ’, ‘ _The defeated_ ’. Marlton had translated the word when Stuhlinger had wondered aloud its meaning early on in the lighthouse. Stuhlinger had tensed up at Marlton’s translation and it didn’t get past her that Richtofen might have told Stuhlinger the Latin term. The foreshadowing was the thing she didn’t take into account until it was far too late.

**3**

**2**

**1**

And it was far too late...

**Click!**

“Boys…”, Misty uttered aloud, her voice devoid of anything. The hold on her weapon slacked but not once did her weapon lower to her side and her hardened gaze did not falter at the mass number of the dead who managed to push their makeshift barrier down. “We’re d--”

  
  


**“What are you talking about?! We found the Agarthan Device!”**

  
  


Stuhlinger cried out suddenly, his voice a mixture of fear and grief that grated against Misty’s ears like nails on a chalkboard. A shot of anger coursed through Misty’s body as she stopped her pointless clicks and turned to the man, who looked desperately to the sky. Even though his glasses, stained with god knows what, covered his eyes, it was obvious the man was breaking down in tears. The sight of them rolling down his cheeks and the audible sobs only confirmed this and Misty was clearly about to lose it when her ears also registered the absence of gunfire coming from the rest of her team. She looked to Marlton and Russman, expecting to feel her heart break at the sight of them getting swarmed before they could even scream, only to find them both staring at the sky in shock. The dead had now begun to swarm their area and were beginning to split up to go after each of them in groups, but at the moment when Misty gazed up to the sky as well, she had forgotten about their existence. Their existence--like their very own--now became even smaller compared to the sight above. 

Earlier when they had arrived and anytime she stood at the observation deck of the laboratory in the mountain, a dusky rose sky would greet her. Of all the places she had been during the journey, she had to say that Siberia’s sky was a beautiful sight even with the cold. She went even so far as to say that it wasn’t a bad place to die. How she regretted those words now, even when that same sunrise that provided them with whatever warmth and serenity it could muster in this Siberian wasteland was beginning to be engulfed by a sheet of total darkness. By no means is it anything they have encountered and they had all been witnesses to otherworldly sights during their travels. Even a while ago, they had to risk their lives and traverse this same area when it was engulfed in fire and lava that made Misty remember dreadfully of the town but to a grander scale of devastation. Whatever was happening, she wasn’t sure what to make of it. A blanket of total darkness, whose height reached even higher than that of the sun and as far in width than her eyes could register. A worldwide darkness, where things are hidden to the naked eye and shadows play the mind, where very bad things thrive in and she knew first hand when it came to night shifts during their travels, where it was clear from those past experiences that they weren’t safe. And the darkness was moving.

And it was coming straight for them. 

She watched as everything began to be engulfed right before her. From the laboratory within the mountains they were in a while ago to the lighthouse where their hermit ally provided them help to the freak bags that were so close to them now. She was anticipating the pain of one of them going for her throat but it never came as they too began to fade. Only their roars within her mind were the only evidence of their existence but she cared not for them when her eyes were elsewhere. She caught a glimpse of Russman’s expression of confusion and Stuhlinger’s shocked look before they were engulfed by it before she finally felt everything within her being had stopped. It came to her fast and the darkness surrounded her in its’ numbing embrace. It wasn’t fast enough to cover her eyes and she took that small window of time to take in one final glimpse of a world she so desperately tried to save. She caught a glimpse of Marlton one last time and the fear within his eyes and his mouth forming to say her name was the last thing she held onto as everything around her darkened at last.

* * *

**“I know...and I’m sorry.”**

The final words of Edward Richtofen left his lips. By no means was he planning on saying anything for what was to come for the likes of Stuhlinger. Along with the rest of his allies, he served his purpose, even after all these years within a cycle that would finally be broken, he remained faithful to him. He was not the first to heed his commands but he certainly was the last that remained on his knees to serve his every wish. Unlike those that came before him, they shared the same mind and thoughts and it was a gift rewarded to Stuhlinger only by doing something that not any normal individual could ever do. Nor could they ever stomach even at desperate times. Not even Richtofen’s best men from a lifetime so long ago, no matter how loyal they were to him, would ever be so mad enough to eat the flesh of something that once had consciousness. Something that once was loved, had dreams beyond reality, had made the sacrifices that needed to be done to achieve those dreams. He glances at the bodies around the same campfire where not too long ago he partook in a celebration of a fabled Great War. To every one of them, it was one more fight that needed to be fought to achieve the victory that eluded them for so long: to be free.

**_A Shakespearean tragedy._ **

To think that there was no grand scheme on his part to continue the chaos for the sake of living. He knew; he and the younger, far too serious Nikolai knew. To achieve such a victory was to finally accept the loss that came with it. He knew as he raised the cup of the poisoned wine to his lips, when he poured even more of the wine in the cups of his old and new allies, and when they all shared their dreams and sung such a jolly tune that they were long dead. Their own fates were sealed since the moment he binded their souls to the Seal of Duality years ago. It was a shame he had to bring many down along the journey to realize he was not meant for a throne to control the entire world, let alone the entire universe. He had no problem shedding blood, both the dead and the living, but in the man’s final moments, Richtofen understood what he had done that led him to this moment. Even his younger version was no better than him, he who had and he quotes:

_“I’ve been a witness to many miracles and catastrophes,_

_I’ve saddled giants, conquered shadows,_

_...walked a path no other could take--”_

The rest he had drowned out at how ridiculous and delusional he sounded to his ears. And yet, to see his men long dead around the fire, to see Samantha’s figure hiding a child version of himself behind her from him, to hear Stuhlinger’s frantic thoughts of what was happening, prayers made out of desperation, and the grief-stricken voice let out by the man...he wonders if there was any chance to save what was already damned.

He can only imagine the thoughts going through Stuhlinger’s allies were to some degree the same as Stuhlinger’s, but there was no way of knowing for sure. He doubted he could even comfort them in their last moments of life and he doubted they could ever comprehend that this had to happen for the sake of everyone else. Despite their irritating persistence to follow Maxis blindly in the beginning, they proved to be capable enough to follow the orders of another version of him. After all, they had gotten the Kronorium just for dear ol’ Nikolai to read of the destiny that his own younger version tried to avoid. A destiny that he knows was crafted due to his past actions, one that they all had to pay for in blood. 

**“Me too Richtofen.”**

He feels the barrel of a gun aimed at his head right after hearing Nikolai’s voice. His time has come to follow everyone else, wherever that truly was. Although he senses himself freezing at the idea of his death once he senses Nikolai pulling the trigger, he does nothing to move from the danger. He remains where he is, content and very much afraid. The implication that there was no way to come back from this was lodged within his mind long before he felt the bullet enter him, but now it no longer mattered anymore. At the end of a perilous, interesting journey of seeing himself as the answer to improve the human condition only to be one of the reasons of humanity’s downfall to manipulate a chosen few to partake on a quest to save what could no longer be saved, he knew he had it all coming.

**_And he had no regrets._ **

* * *

_And this is the end of all of us, my darling,_

_Don't be scared, just hold your Daddy's hand,_

_And everything, everything will fade,_

_Everything will fade._

* * *

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and thank you so much kind reader on giving this a chance. I hope you are staying safe during this crazy time of quarantining and that you wash your hands! I hope to use the time to write this story because I do have one to tell when it comes to this rag tag crew. 
> 
> Until next time, hope you can tag along!


	2. The Dark Aether

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When we are gone so too is everything that spewed forth from the Aether. Element 115, the Apothicons, even Monty himself. All of it will be banished to where it belongs. The Dark Aether." - Primis Nikolai Belinski

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope for anyone who keeps coming back to check if this gets updated will forgive me. I also hope it was worth the wait.

* * *

_And there are times when I just cannot sleep..._

_They know when I dream..._

_And this is the end of all of us, my darling,_

_Don't be scared, just hold your Daddy's hand,_

_And everything, everything will fade,_

_Everything will fade._

* * *

When the darkness came for her at last in the end, she could only imagine what it would bring. In all of its otherworldly appearance, it had come to her at a breaking point when she had been completely caught off guard by the sight and the feeling of defeat had begun to settle down within her body. A sight unlike any she had ever seen combined with the fear of knowing nothing of what it would do to her had left her rooted to where she stood on legs threatening to give out. Had the darkness given her just a few more moments within the world she had fought her final battle in, a part of her imagines that she would have spent those fleeting moments kneeling down on the ship’s metal deck. To add even more insult to her own injury, frozen in the presence of a new unknown that had begun to take in everything in its path, she would have most likely closed her eyes to save herself of the very moment it would take her in. She would have done so out of an old habit she hadn’t done since she was a child; younger her believed the scary things in life wouldn’t get her if she closed her eyes very tight. 

Misty, however, was not a child anymore. As an adult, a veteran survivor within a world where its new horrors outnumbered the likes of her, she did not do any of those things in the end.

The decade-long fight made it clear she was more than that pathetic act, far more than what she used to be like when she had everything. Nothing like before when the world had been easier and the days were far too short for her liking. In a time when she knew nothing of what the world would transpire into, very naive to what the entire universe would become to her, she had been many things. Those things had done nothing to her over the decade but add even more guilt to her consciousness the more she lingered on those memories.

Despite a decade of seeing the absolute worst of what had remained of humanity, she had done her absolute best to cherish what remained of the world before. By no means was it enough to deal with the pain, enough to ever consider replacing what had been taken from her, but it had been enough to craft her into who she was now. She had not only grown for the better but had done so to stay alive longer. There had been many nights in that decade when she would look up to the sky and wonder if any of her folks were looking down at her, if any of them were looking out for her and proud to see how far she had come. In order to sleep better on those nights, she wanted to believe that they were all proud of her.

_She had started the journey off as the remnant of the Briarton family; a lone orphan having to fend for herself in a world she had always but never had the chance to explore._

_She had reached the conclusion among other folks from different walks of life unknown to her; had she been able to put her full trust in them without any fear, perhaps she would’ve called them friends._

Truly, she had done her best to save everything that still mattered and to save everyone she had tried her best to keep together throughout it all. When it all began to disappear, the inevitable was also coming straight for her. Despite what she felt in those final moments, feeling herself hang by a thread threatening to snap against the weight of reality itself, she did not resort to being a coward in the face of the unknown. Her dad made it clear to her once that to ‘soldier up’ was to also do so in the face of defeat, no matter how much she wanted to collapse underneath the whole ordeal. He had known it all too well, though he never went into full detail; one look into her dad’s eyes as he searched for something far beyond their endless wheat every morning said it all for her. She was by no means a legitimate soldier, nowhere in the same league like her dad and the many others within her family of decorated service men and women. She had only been a mere daughter, a niece, a cousin, the list of blood titles went on that she simply inherited from birth. She highly doubts the loss of a war and the loss of brothers in arms could even come close to the same impact of losing everything and everyone within an entire multiverse but she chastises herself. With or no rank, familiarity registers within her about what her dad must have felt looking far beyond the wheats to the unknown. After everything they could have done within their power, it had not been enough in the end.

**_Not enough to save the universe._ **

**_Not enough to save everyone within it._ **

**_Not enough to save her boys._ **

**_Not enough to save herself._ **

The idea weakens everything within her, but with what little strength and dignity that had not abandoned her, it had been enough to keep her standing. It had been enough for her to face the darkness with open eyes. She only wished her dad would have also taught her how to handle the losses, how to cope with the idea of everything being lost because of her own blindness of following the orders of mad men. She wants to know what happens next for her. 

Even when the darkness surrounds her in its cold embrace, she feels herself go involuntarily limp within its hold, as if the darkness had been ready to catch her inevitable fall. Her mind registers that she is being cradled by the vastness of the unknown surrounding her, but her mind is at a loss on how she should feel right now. Her dad never spoke on how those losses of his affected him, how he felt about them many years later. Now here she was a decade later after his demise: a broken, tired, corpse of her former self floating aimlessly within a darkness that came right after they sent off the Agarthan Device. 

She’s lost. She has questions, far too many than the usual ones she had, but she has a feeling they too will remain unanswered for as long as she is here. Aside from the questions, she has many feelings and thoughts rushing throughout her mind, which culminate into a war against one another at what she should ultimately feel. She’s never been in a predicament like this before, wasn’t one to entertain the idea of losing when they were so close to victory, but here she was. She’s not prepared when the battle within her mind begins to peak in intensity, the overall turmoil within is unrelenting and no mercy is given to her in her weakened state. Despite the area around her cradling her body ever so gently, her mind does not give her the leisure to enjoy it whatsoever. They scream against the inner walls of her mind, raw emotions reflecting hard against them, demanding for a way out of their confines that have grown smaller with each passing wave. She does not let them, still refuses to break underneath the weight of everything that has happened to her, what had happened that had gotten her into this situation. By the time she desperately tries to reaffirm herself again that she must be strong, she notices something off. 

_Something off about her._

It all starts with her fingers; she registers the feeling of numbness begin to envelop them. The feeling slowly moves past her gloved knuckles, having left her fingers twitching in its wake. Around her is cold and she most likely wouldn’t have noticed if the feeling wasn’t even colder than her surroundings. 

By the time the feeling passes the rest of her palms and begins creeping up the rest of her arms, they are jerked violently to her sides against her will. It happens so suddenly that her only reaction to it is small compared to what she would’ve done in any other situation. The sudden act gets her to widen her eyes but she finds that she can’t do anything else in response to something she has no control of. She finds that she still can’t do anything when her legs are the next ones to be bound together, which happened to become numb the moment the feeling creeped down her thighs to her feet. Before she has time to fully process what was happening to her, every inch of her body starts to become frozen in place the further the numbness continues to spread. Her shoulders and hips are frozen in an odd way, as if she had cracked them both out of place, but there is no discomfort nor any pain that she can register. She’s left in an awkward, defenseless position, suspended in a place where there is no beginning nor an end to the darkness. When she finally has the time to process it all, once she has a feeling her joints will no longer be bound even further, she is now aware that she is constricted of any and all movement, her entire body frozen in place as if she were a living statue. A living, breathing, weathered down statue floating within the darkness, unable to protect herself if anything were to suddenly jump out now and break her.

She wants to know what could possibly be holding her down in such a way but she has a feeling she may never be able to fully understand it. Like everything else that had happened within her journey, starting from the moment the nukes came to the last moment of her own existence, it was far beyond her comprehension. What doesn’t make things better for her is the fact the feelings and thoughts that had been rampaging in her head have now fallen eerily silent. She had been so caught up with the physical ordeal that she’s not sure when the thoughts and feelings finally died down. She doesn’t want them to come back; she’s heard enough in just a short amount of time that she can welcome the silence now. For a little while, that is.

Because now it gives her time to _think_. And from personal experiences, it was rarely about wishful thinking. She wonders if the darkness or whatever could be restraining her body had to do so for a petty, unnecessary reason. 

_Had it realized that she stood her ground in the end, despite everything and everyone falling apart around her? Had it sensed her need to stay strong, even after it had her trapped within its domain? If by some miracle, she would at last fight back against the restraints, fight back against this fate that had befallen her, fight a bit longer even if it seemed pointless?_

**_The only problem with that had been the fact that she doesn’t want to fight back. Not at the moment at least._ **

_But this isn’t like any other moment_ , she muses bitterly to herself. Clearly not if she were to even consider the notion of doing absolutely nothing in a situation where there was clearly something wrong. 

_Doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing_ , her own motto now seems to taunt her in this predicament. As if those words would miraculously give her what she needs to do something. Something, anything, anything other than letting this happen to her. But it does nothing to her, nothing familiar courses through her veins. The flames of rebellion, a constant wildfire that erupted from within for any battle she had ever prepared herself for, does not ignite. As if she was standing in the rain that never stopped pelting down at her. She remains motionless within her restraints as if she were a fly no longer struggling within the spider’s web, awaiting the final bite that would end the misery.

The more she thinks, the more her thoughts become nothing more than the thoughts of someone still holding on; her grip grows weaker and weaker. She wonders if the darkness could actually be the embodiment of death itself, which could easily explain everything. In fact, it’s not as far fetched as the other things she’s seen throughout the journey; a memory of her reading stories portraying death in different ways assured her that it’s not strange at all. It explains her overall state at the moment; there was no need to move within the afterlife, no need to consider feeling anything when it no longer mattered anymore, no need to fight back against it.

**_There was no longer any need to stay alive._ **

**_She must be dead._ **

If she truly is dead, then she must have been crazy to confront death head on in the way that she did, but she knows she could have faced death in other ways. Ways that would have made her experience far worse, would have made her experience the true fear and the real pain of what many unfortunate souls experienced in the apocalypse. A part of her wants to consider herself lucky to be one of the chosen few to have a relatively painless demise but that’s stupid of her to even think that. There were no real victors in the end, no lucky few to count herself in; she had merely been added to an endless list of victims. Even so, she can’t help but feel that she’s been cheated, even in death. It’s not a picture perfect end, here in the afterlife.

It’s not an afterlife she had imagined, not an afterlife she grew up hearing about from the older folks of her family; those who felt their time was coming, those who spent their last days wondering aloud on what the other side would be like. It was a morbid topic for her little ears to listen on, but even at a young age she had known she too would be like them one day. She too envisioned what it would be like on the other side and despite how utterly ridiculous she sounded at a young age, Misty had hoped the afterlife was at least close to her vision of it. She had expected to see what she had envisioned for so long: a familiar face. She had expected to be reunited once more with her dad, a man she had hoped would appear to her completely intact before his untimely death. Though she had long forgotten her face, she had expected to at least hear Ma’s voice call out to her. She had expected to see her loved ones, the ones closest to her and even the ones she knew nothing about. Anyone would do really, she just wanted at least someone to greet her when her time came, which came whether she liked it or not. An eternity of peace she would have with all of them to make up for time that was stolen from her, time she had wasted selfishly. She had expected the heavenly atmosphere, expected all the pain and trauma to vanish from her being once and for all, expected to be surrounded by all the people that mattered most to her in the very end. 

Her expectations are shattered when she realizes how truly alone she feels within the darkness. 

**_Alone._ **

One word alone grips her heart, leaving her to feel panicked at what the word meant to her, what it made her remember of what it was like to be alone. It wasn’t ideal to start panicking, too risky to think back on those memories. Especially when she needed to rely on her senses to help her right now. Despite being unable to move physically, she relies on her eyes to look around her surroundings; she wants to know for sure that she’s not alone, that she’s not the only one within this darkness after all.

She can’t see anything clearly now that her eyes have to try even harder than normal to detect something other than darkness. With each glance to corners of the darkness she believes are there, she looks for anything. Colors that stand out against the darkness, the slightest bit of movement to disrupt it, listens within the deafening silence for anything, anything that could give her reassurance that she is not alone. She gets a gut feeling that gives her a bit of hope: she is **_not_ ** alone.

She’s not deterred by the idea in the slightest; she clearly cannot function properly on her own at the moment, cannot even begin to think of what could possibly be with her in the darkness. She becomes hopeful, however, as she searches even quicker around her.

First, she peers below her as best as she can in her position. Then she looks left. Then right. Looks up. Looks down again for much longer. And then looks at her left and right side quickly. 

With each glance, she grows even more desperate with the movement of her eyes. She’s so desperate that she considers the idea of forcing her head to finally move from its frozen position to take a good look around when her gut feeling screams. As if it were even possible at this point, an even greater chill crawls up her spine, so great that it makes Misty’s gaze frozen on one supposedly random spot in the darkness.

**_Something within her decimates any and all hope and expectations of hers: it isn’t her loved ones with her._ **

The idea that whatever is with her in the vastness of darkness isn’t someone that she could possibly know slowly begins to dawn on her. Before she can even consider what to do with this revelation, something grabs her by the back collar of her shirt. As if life had breathed into her, everything within Misty starts to come back to her.

She finds that she can’t breathe or rather she inhales something thick that begins to fill her, causing her to struggle. Her mind, which had once been silenced to her relief, has now come to life with thoughts and feelings that leave her to struggle more in the grasp of her unknown companion.

_AIR, NEED AIR!_

_CAN’T SCREAM!_

_AIR, AIR, AIR, SCREAM FOR HELP!_

_SCREAM, BREATHE, CAN’T BREATHE AIR!_

_AIR, BREATHE, SCREAM!_

_SCREAM, AIR, SCREAM, BREATHE!_

They scatter back and forth within her mind as Misty struggles to breathe or rather wretch out whatever has entered her. Even her nostrils are forbidden to exhale, the same thing of something vile entering her with each desperate inhale makes things worse. When she stops struggling, she realizes something else: she’s being pulled up. There was nothing above her when she glanced in that direction, but realizing that she _doesn’t know_ what could possibly be there, knowing something was clearly dragging her even further up to their little spot in this darkness is enough for her mind to focus on one thing and one thing alone. All the panic, all the feelings that could contain her in a weak state of mind, her need for air, everything she doesn’t need at the moment had been pushed to the side. They linger but at the forefront of it all there is something familiar that begins to ignite; familiar and welcomed right on time: _newly lit flames of a fighting spirit within._ Flames within her that begin to overwhelm the coldness that had a grasp on her, though such a thing must have been her mind playing tricks.

All she focuses on is her clenched fists, which she swings wildly upwards now that the invisible restraints hold her down weakly. She swings, though her fists make no impact; the feeling of being able to fight once more only to find that she can’t hurt her attacker frustrates her. So much that it fuels her to do even more than her swings. She kicks her legs up as far up as she can, farther up than she’s ever done in so long. She twists her entire body, farther than she’s done before that she has to wonder if she’ll break something. The thought leaves her quickly; better than where she’s being dragged off to. She reaches behind her head in an attempt to pry herself free, which only causes the grip on her back collar to tighten. She doesn’t give up, even when she feels her consciousness begin to fade in and out, even when her own swings and kicks begin to grow sluggish with each passing moment. She becomes overwhelmed at last, despite the newfound strength. In her final moments, she loses the struggle to keep her eyes open, her hands that desperately tried to pry herself free begin to slack, and against her better judgment, she takes one more inhale in. Her head lolls backwards and her gaze catches a glimpse of a light though she chalks this up as her slipping further from consciousness. 

_She doesn’t want to go yet._

* * *

**⇷⇷⇷Entering the Dark Aether⇸⇸⇸**

* * *

Despite her fierce struggle and the pain she had inadvertently caused in her franticness on his arm and hand, Marlton’s grip on Misty does not loosen until he’s positively sure that her head is now above the dark waters. He’s relieved to see her, incredibly fortunate that he had spotted her distinct colors within the waters, but by the looks of Misty’s pale face and slightly blue lips, there was no time to celebrate.

Without looking away, he calls for Russman, who by Marlton’s knowledge, had been in the process of catching his own breath. 

“Assist me over here, I found Misty!” Marlton adds in quickly after he hears Russman respond to his name being called. His hold on the back collar of her shirt nearly slips but the man has enough time to grab her wrist with his other hand, making sure her head is still above the water when he does so. His attempts to pull Misty’s body onto the shore aren’t successful but he doesn’t spare any moment to berate himself when he hears footsteps running beside him. There was no time to punish himself for his incompetence, not when Misty wasn’t responding to Russman calling out her name and her skin was ice cold to the touch.

“She’s unconscious, you idiot!” Marlton snaps at the older man and he feels the older man shoot a glare at him but Marlton pays him no attention. Instead, he motions with his head towards Misty’s other arm. To his relief, Russman gets the message and the older man wastes no time on grabbing Misty’s other arm. With the help of Russman, the two men are able to finally pull an unconscious Misty out of the waters, dragging her body a few short meters away onto the shore. Carefully, the men lay Misty on her back and Marlton wastes no time to evaluate her as quickly as he can. 

It had been his mother’s dream to see him in the medical field and though he could never imagine himself in a career of being so close to others who needed his help, Marlton applies his knowledge and pushes away his discomforts in an attempt to revive Misty. He presses his ear next to her mouth and nose, far too focused on the task of detecting any chest movements and trying to feel air on his cheek than focusing on how close he is to her. When he doesn’t see movement and doesn’t detect air on his cheek, he reaches for her icy arm and tries to find a pulse, no matter how faint it could be. He mentally counts the ten seconds and in such a small time span, it’s enough for him to take in everything. Everything that he needs to either push away or focus on more.

_His own panic beginning to rise by the time he mentally reaches the six second mark and there is still no pulse he can detect?_ **_Push away._ **

_Russman on the other side of Misty, telling her nonchalantly that she’s a tough one and this shouldn’t be the thing that kills her?_ ** _Push farther away._**

_Noticing he has reached the ten second mark and Misty has yet to give him a pulse he can work with?_ **_Focus on CPR._ **

Naturally, he feels his cheeks grow warm when he knows where his hands must rest upon but one look from Russman gets him to collect his nerves once more. He cannot be so prudish in such a risky situation, not when he had the knowledge to help a teammate in need. He can only hope Misty will forgive him for such an intrusion as he places the heel of his left hand on the center of her chest, followed by his right hand resting on top. He begins to do chest compressions on Misty, remembering not to press down too hard and that the compressions must be done at a rate of 100 to 120 per minute. 

“Come on, come on, come on”, Marlton mutters to himself aloud as he makes sure that with each compression he does, Misty’s chest rises fully. He pays close attention, hoping to see any indication that she has started breathing once more. His panic begins to increase once more the longer Misty continues to be unresponsive, but Marlton makes sure his compressions don’t change in pace. He needs to remain calm, despite Russman now looking and voicing his concern over Marlton’s mental counting, which is beginning to distract him. He needs to remain assertive, despite Russman giving him a glare after Marlton tells him to be quiet, which makes Marlton glare back at the man. He needs to remain positive when he resumes the chest compressions on Misty, focusing on her face because he needs to see for himself, needs to know for sure that she will wake up.

Marlton tries to remain positive that he will see her eyes fly open at any moment, even if his rational thoughts begin to seep through his mind. They are soothing to hear in his mind, gently telling him that he did the best that he could for her, that it’s better for her to leave this world rather than trying to keep her here, that he must stop trying any further. Marlton refuses to listen and with Russman telling him to try harder, it keeps the man going. It keeps the man to hold onto the idea that Misty will awaken.

Suddenly, Misty does become responsive: light brown eyes fly wide open, her eye movements erratic at best. It happens without any indication that she had started breathing that it catches both him and Russman off guard as they fall away from her. Neither man had any time to look away when Misty turned her head to the side and began to retch out the contents of the water onto the shore: pure black sludge that Marlton could only describe as being almost visually similar to tar. He has to turn away when he starts to feel nauseous at the sight, but the man is left to listen to the woman retching even more and struggling to inhale air she desperately needs. When her coughing fit starts to die down, Marlton looks back only to see Misty crawl a few inches away from the mess before she finally slumps forward onto her stomach. 

Russman had already been at her side when Marlton ran over to them, kneeling down on Misty’s other side. He looks at Russman, who meets Marlton’s bewildered gaze with his own, and then looks back to Misty between them.

“Misty?”, Marlton calls to her gently when the silent atmosphere begins to unnerve him, knowing full well that Misty was by no means the quietest in the group. Even in the times when she had been in bad shape, she had something to say to them, whether that had been in the form of telling a tasteless joke or calling the others for assistance. For her to be so quiet now doesn't help Marlton nor does it help Russman either.

“Russman’s askin’ for Little Misty to quit draggin’ her act and say somethin’ already,” Russman says aloud while also tapping Misty on her shoulder repeatedly. “Can’t take any more scares for God’s sake.” Marlton lets the man continue to tap on Misty as he waits for any sort of response from the woman.

“Misty?”, Marlton asks once more when Russman withdraws from the tapping altogether. A few moments pass but Marlton and Russman get what they wanted when they hear Misty stir at last. 

“That’s me,” Misty says weakly. By Marlton’s observation, she seemed to have strained her voice in order to be heard but it's all he needs to rest easy now. A task better said than done, especially when his mind wasn't ready to let him do so. On the brighter side of things, he could take comfort in the fact that he had enough time to physically rest, which he wastes no time in doing so.

He sits down with a heavy sigh now that he acknowledges his knees have gotten sore in the rough terrain. He runs a hand through his disheveled, slightly wet hair and he’s suddenly reminded once more of his surroundings. He looks over to the dark waters a few feet away from them, observing it all with a cautious look. He’s not sure what to even think of it and the fact he has no words for it unnerves the man. The others would surely start to question it once they had their own bearings, but Marlton thinks he will still be at a loss for words when they look to him. Despite this, it had only been in his nature for him to quip his own musings and thoughts of the many strange and unknown oddities they had encountered throughout the journey.

Certainly this time would be no different. And yet, the timid man’s own mind and tongue remain silent.

By his own observation, the waters are pure black and aside from the disturbance he had caused earlier from pulling Misty to the top, they remain eerily still. When he gets up from his spot to walk just a few steps closer to the waters, there’s no ripple in sight to catch his attention. The absence of water coming into the shoreline and retreating back does not escape him. He could still be in the process of recovering from their most recent ordeal but he could have sworn the closer he got the waters, the water soon began to inch closer to him. He looks over his shoulder, along with a few steps back, when he hears Misty begin to undergo another coughing fit. The second he turns around again, the waters remain eerily still. Wherever they could possibly be now, he’s not certain of it; the waters are certainly a sign that it’s somewhere they _should not_ stay for long. Even when he takes in everything else from the sand they’re currently on to the air that surrounds them, there’s something about it that puts Marlton off. 

_It all remains eerily still._

He looks to the dark waters again with a worried gaze. On the surface, there was nothing; the waters were void of all sounds and disturbances. 

_As if he hadn’t struggled within it not too long ago underneath._

Without breaking his gaze, he takes even more steps away from the waters until he no longer wishes to see it for now. He turns around in time to see Misty attempting to prop herself up only to fall back down with a grunt. He rushes over to help; his questions had to wait at the moment and he is a patient man. Even when Misty mutters that she can prop herself up on her own, Marlton remains at her side, coaxing her enough to let Russman and him assist her.

All that mattered at the moment was being reunited with his fellow teammates after thinking the worst had happened to them. He was reunited with his first ally after thinking he’d never see her again. She was physically drained at the moment, nearly tipping over on her side only for Marlton to instinctively catch her, but she was now conscious. Even when she rested herself on him, her back flushed against his chest, Marlton hadn’t paid much attention to it, rather focusing on meeting Russman’s smug look with a glare of his own as if it were any other day. As if Misty’s life hadn’t been in jeopardy but that was behind them now. Misty was now conscious. And breathing. 

**_And alive._ **

* * *

**_She doesn’t want to close her eyes anytime soon, not when she knows that she’s very much alive now._ **

She knows it to be true with the soreness she feels all over her body, especially in the areas that were bound against her. She rubs a hand against her neck, grimacing in pain for a moment when she cracks it to the side. The sound is enough to make Marlton jump slightly and it’s the moment she takes into account the others with her. 

When she sees Russman and Marlton there with her, it’s just another reason not to close her eyes again. Her heart grips seeing them once more, a wave of relief passes over her, but she pauses in her smile when she feels that she shouldn’t have her hopes up just yet. 

_She could easily be hallucinating. She could still be in the darkness with her mind playing tricks on her for all she knows. She could actually be dead. She should know better by now._

Misty’s bottom lip quivers and she could care less at the moment. At the very least, whether her boys were hallucinations or really there, she’s very much happy to see them again.

“You guys,” Misty starts in a small voice. When she looks up to see Marlton peering over her shoulder with a small smile and looks back to see Russman kneeling in front of her, her optimism starts to increase just a bit. “You guys are actually here? I’m not making this up, right?” Misty looks down to see Marlton’s hand planted on the terrain beside her and without thinking much about the man’s germ phobia, she reaches down and entwines her gloved fingers with his. She can’t hold back the relieved chuckle she lets out when he pulls his hand away from hers; she felt his hand.

**They’re real.**

“In the wrinkled flesh and old bones of Russman, Little Misty,” Russman tells her, patting her head. It’s a good thing she feels sore all over, otherwise she would have most certainly pulled Russman and Marlton in a tight embrace, something she would have never done in any other situation. Instead, she gives the old man a small smile, leaning further back into Marlton’s chest. “Gave your boyfriend and I a real scare back there.”

“Which is a very good thing that I am well versed in cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” Marlton replies, ignoring Russman. “Unfortunately, I think that will be the only good outcome that comes out from this situation we have found ourselves in.”

Misty makes another attempt to sit up on her own and though Marlton offers to assist her once more, she waves him off, more confident this time around. She pushes off of the man slowly with one hand placed on his chest, which gives her a moment to feel his increasing heartbeat through her glove. She doesn’t give it another thought when she lets her hand slip away from him at last, planting her hands down firmly at her sides. When she’s certain that she will not fall down, she looks between Marlton and Russman in confusion.

“That’s the thing,” Misty begins to wonder aloud, taking in the area they are in with her eyes. Nothing about it brings anything familiar to mind. Nothing at all gives her any indication that it’s another mission done. “Where exactly are we anyway?” She looks to Marlton, but the man looks away from her with a disappointed look on his face.

“I am afraid that even I cannot provide any clear answers of our whereabouts, Misty,” He looks back to her before his gaze shifts to the waters. She follows his gaze. “All I can provide you with is my strong notion that we may not be in any environment familiar to us.”

“No shit, Marlton,” Russman tells the man bluntly. “Even if he could, Russman can’t even begin to remember somethin’ like this existin’ in our world. Gotta be somethin’ to do with the German. Maybe even the Russian. Hell, could be anythin’. Forces always been against us since the beginning.”

Misty nods with each word coming from Russman; they sound so plausible at this point and this is all coming from Russman’s own mouth. Absentmindedly, she brings her legs close to her shivering form, though the action of doing so makes her wince. She’s still very much cold but she stares at the waters before her, resting her chin on her knees. She can ignore the cold and soreness right now; clearly there was much more that had her attention. She doesn’t know where to even begin with the experience; it made her feel **weak**. She buries her face within her legs, blinking her eyes rapidly. This was certainly not the best time to cry out her frustrations of what she couldn’t understand, how the unknown had gotten someone like her to feel so vulnerable and helpless, taunting the idea that she was dead and would exist alone. 

_But you’re not alone_ , she thinks to herself. _For what it’s worth_ , _you’ve got them still._

She lifts her face, narrowed eyes aimed at the dark waters a few feet away from her. 

_No, no she’s not anymore._

She stares at the waters for a moment longer before turning to Marlton, who is no longer in his spot on the shore. She turns to Russman and she finds that the older man is following Marlton to another spot farther away from where they once were. She follows the men with her eyes and she looks ahead into the direction they’re heading towards; it’s the moment she sees Stuhlinger at last. 

From where she sits she cannot see his face but she takes mental notes of his body. There’s nothing good that she can note as she examines the man. His whole body language makes it seem he is a dead man propped on the large boulder he was leaning on. With his arms haphazardly strewn at his sides, she would have mistaken him for a dead man had she not taken into account that his whole body was shivering violently. He looks worse than her, far worse, and she wonders if Marlton had revived him and left him immediately afterwards. 

_No comfort, no gentle words, no more help afterwards._

She watches Marlton approaching closer to Stuhlinger and there’s something off with how he walks towards the man, slow and with purpose. Her mind doesn’t process fast enough and she can only sit there and watch as Marlton slaps Stuhlinger across the face. The sound of it shocks her and it leaves her witnessing the turmoil unraveling before her with wide eyes. 

_Stuhlinger falls to his side with a pained grunt from the force of Marlton’s hand. He’s weak and defenseless, Misty is sure of it when Stuhlinger makes no effort to get up. He scoots away with wide eyes and audible wheezes, desperate in putting more distance away from Marlton, who's ready to deliver another blow. Before either men can prepare themselves, Russman effortlessly pulls Marlton back, tackling the man to the ground. Russman may have been the oldest and riddled with physical problems, but it was clear Marlton stood no chance against the man as he tried in vain to get Russman off of him. During the fight, Misty managed to crawl closer to them, desperate to stop them however she could, only to stop just a few steps away from them when Marlton tried once more to toss Russman off of him. Russman does not bulge from his hold on the man._

“I told you all we should have eliminated the _threat!_ You all paid no heed to my words and look where it has gotten all of us”, Marlton spats out, wincing visibly when Russman grips harder onto Marlton’s arms pinned behind his back. He turns his head to look at a visibly shaken Stuhlinger but the sight doesn’t deter the man. “So blinded by loyalty to your supposed _friend_ that you failed to realize he promised you things he could never grant! Once he had his Agarthan Device, you became useless, we all became useless!”

Stuhlinger sits there in silence, never meeting anyone’s gaze. It’s enough of a reason to let Marlton speak more.

“I knew it all along! I was a pitiful fool to miraculously believe your deranged, highly-questionable beliefs in your friend fixing everything, a _fool_ to follow Richtofen for another mission that only benefited him while the rest of us are dealt with even more questions than answers! I was a **_fool_ ** to let Russman and Misty hold me back when I should have dispatched you when I had the opportunity!”

Misty looks to Russman who meets her worried gaze with one in the same vein as hers. They have no words to share, no words to comfort their allies. They hear a small whimper break the uncomfortable silence and the two look down at Marlton, who meets Misty’s gaze with a look of hopelessness. She wasn’t ready to see it and she was certainly not ready to hear his voice, wavered and teetering on the brink of hiccuping.

“I was a damn fool to think we would all be okay…”, Marlton closes his eyes behind his glasses and turns his face to the ground, defeated.

Misty looks on for a bit longer before she crawls her way to sit at Marlton’s side. “Marlton…”, Misty aimlessly calls his name, looking for something, anything to say to the man. Suddenly, for the first time since Siberia, Stuhlinger’s voice is heard by all. And it catches everyone off guard with how clear it comes out from his poor state.

“ **_Screw you, Darlington._ **”

As if the man had been given an energy boost, he springs to his feet and advances towards the pinned man. Misty looks to Russman, who stays put on Marlton as he tries to deter Stuhlinger from approaching any further with a warning glare, but it does nothing. 

“ **_Screw you, screw you, screw you_ **!”

Ignoring the soreness that amplifies when she gets up and runs, Misty ignores it all as she tries to hold back Stuhlinger. He tries to push her away but Misty’s feet stay planted where they stand as she acts as a barrier between him and Marlton. Other times, she would have pleaded with them to keep it together, reminding them that they’re all in this together. Seeing Stuhlinger’s wild eyes before her and hearing Marlton behind her begin to grunt as Russman angrily mutters at him to stay still, it’s clear they’re not going to hear it. Not right now. Not when Stuhlinger reaches out once more to push her away. The moment his hand grips her arm, Misty’s free hand grips his arm, painfully. 

“Don’t fucking try me, Stu”, Misty warns him in a low tone. Her glare is trained on him the entire time, not giving him the chance to intimidate her, even when he breathes heavily through his nostrils and his eyes scorch with hatred. He has forgotten Marlton altogether as he no longer peers over her shoulder; his demeanor is trained solely on her. Even Marlton’s audible struggling behind her has stopped; she doesn’t turn around but she has a feeling the man’s eyes are also on her. 

A few tense moments pass amongst them before Stuhlinger pulls his arm free from Misty’s grip, snorting angrily. She exhales through her nostrils, releasing the breath she held throughout the whole encounter. She doesn’t take her eyes away from Stuhlinger when she turns sideways to face everyone with her. All eyes are on her: one waits for her to call the next shot, one looks at her in a gaze that doesn’t seem entirely focused, and one looks at her with anger that hasn’t subsided just yet. She looks back at them all the same way: calm. She needs to at least remain calm if she’s to reach them all. She inhales a slow breath in, trying to think of the right words that will appeal to them all when they’re clearly torn apart, trying to come up with the right words that will keep them all from lashing out. Her throat feels dry from the slow tension building up the longer she says nothing, the longer they stare at her. She speaks at last, the first thing that comes to her mind when she cannot let another moment of the intense atmosphere pass.

“It’s cold,” The others look somewhat surprised. _Even better_ , she thinks to herself as she continues on. “It’s cold. I’m cold. I can’t be the only one freezing her ass over here, am I?”

A small pause passes before she sees Stuhlinger give a small shake of his head to her, followed by a small ‘no’ from Marlton. Russman follows soon after with the same answer, only clearer and louder. She hugs herself as she continues on with her words.

“I say we all find a place, a _warm_ place on neutral ground, to rest for a while. Don’t know about you folks, but I could surely go for a nap right about now.”

She almost facepalms at how bad her words are, how blatant it must be to them to see her trying to appear casual as if whatever has transpired between them never happened. Clearly there was no time for naps when there’s much more pressing matters to tend to. But she tries.

It won’t erase what happened, won’t erase the tension that had already come to fruition, and her words are nothing special. 

_But she still hopes._

“Russman is game on lookin’ for a place to rest his achin’ joints.”, Russman adds. Misty cracks a small smile at him before turning to the other two men, hoping they will also agree.

Marlton looks at her for a while before he sighs, a long heavy sigh leaves his lips. “Okay.” It’s a good enough answer for Russman as he cautiously lets go of Marlton’s pinned arms, moving to get off of him. Marlton sits up, groaning and immediately rubbing his arms. He glares at Russman before he and Russman get up from the ground, brushing off the soil that had plastered itself onto the front of his clothing from being facedown on the ground. Misty gives Marlton and Russman a nod of approval before she turns to Stuhlinger. The man looks at her carefully, the anger still there but not as intense as before, until he huffs. 

“You even got a plan?”, Stuhlinger asks. She meets his gaze, her smile never faltering. 

“No, I don’t have one,” She looks at them all, who are clearly confused at her smile when she admits that she has no plan. “But I have my team back right now. That’s all that matters to me. I want us to live together for fuck’s sake.”

She looks behind her, away from where they had been separated, away from the dark waters that lurked in the background this entire time, and she catches sight of a forest. It’s vast and she doesn’t like the idea of getting easily lost within a forest; if hypothermia didn’t get them, there would be plenty of other factors that would pick them off slowly. She’s hunted before, traversed through plenty of forests with her dad and uncles during deer seasons, but those were forests known to them with paths they knew to maneuver. There’s no possible way to go around it either. She has to make a decision in the end; the pros and cons of going in or staying here were stacked against them. 

All she can hope for as she takes a step forward is to walk in a straight line; there must be an end to the forest from where she stood. When she hears the others shuffle close behind, she also has to make sure they all stick close. She turns to face them and gives them all their own tasks as she stops at the entrance of the forest: Marlton must mark their trail behind so they can find their way back if they do get lost, Stuhlinger must stay calm and be quiet or else everyone will panic as well, and Russman must stay in front of Marlton and Stuhlinger if he forgets suddenly and doesn’t wander off aimlessly. Misty must listen carefully for any signs of a stream, open areas, or at the very least other people. 

The moment she takes a step forward, it’s all on her to lead them somewhere better. And warm.

**_And safe._ **

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to go ahead and explain why it took me three months to churn out a chapter that, in total, was 8,326 words. 
> 
> I started working at last in my first ever job and couldn't find the time to continue writing like when I wasn't employed. I also tested positive for COVID and had to rest for two weeks. Thankfully, I'm better now.
> 
> There was also the writer's block as I had no idea how to write Misty's scene in the beginning. Speaking of that...
> 
> It was difficult to write the scene overall and I had to rewrite over and over Misty's experience within the area she found herself in. I don't want to give away this area yet as I hope to explain it in the future of this story. I would just say that it's a place everyone goes through before actually entering the Dark Aether itself. It's like a bridge, per say. And it's not one easily crossed when there's something that lurks within it.
> 
> The lyrics in the beginning are also from Benn Down's "The Divider" song as I feel that's a song made for Victis in general. 
> 
> Although Marlton is not a doctor by any means, the fact he references his mother wanting him to be a surgeon and Russman nicknaming him 'Doctor Marlton' in Tag, I like to think he's the closest thing to a medic for the team. Even if he hates germs, he's got some knowledge at least to help his teammates.
> 
> Marlton's outburst and reminding the others that he should have 'eliminated the threat' (Stuhlinger) is a reference to the time Marlton wanted to shoot Stuhlinger dead in Issue 4 of the CoD: Zombies comics. Stuhlinger repeating 'screw you' like that is also a reference of him snapping at Richtofen in that same issue, only it's at Marlton this time.
> 
> There's clearly still tension between Marlton and Stuhlinger so that will be fun for Misty and Russman to deal with. Let's hope they can put it behind them now that they're about to confront the reality of their situation.
> 
> As for the forest bit...I think everyone has an idea that this could be the same forest Ultimis and Primis were in during Tag. Although the forest is a 'gateway to Agartha' and should not make sense why Victis found it already, I'm going to leave that a secret for now. It'll probably be revealed in the next chapter or the chapter after that.
> 
> With all that said, I've started college today so let's see how long it'll take me to write chapter three. It shouldn't be a long wait but if it does, I want to go ahead and apologize for that. I've still got a story to tell and though CoD: Cold War is getting teased and whether or not an Aether reboot, Chaos continues, or a new story is introduced, I hope to still continue it.
> 
> Until chapter three, stay safe and goodbye for now!


End file.
